Shrink film heating device

ABSTRACT

A shrink film heating device includes a chassis above which a hood is arranged. A conveyor belt and a driving belt are arranged between the chassis and the hood. The hood has an upper wall to which at least one heating assembly is mounted to supply hot air into a hollow interior space of the hood. The hood has front and rear walls forming openings that define a heating channel through the hood. Two heat homogenization assemblies are respectively set at opposite sides of the heating channel inside the hood and include a conduit coupled to an air supply source in order to supply regulate temperature air into the hood for mixing with and uniformly distributing high temperature air uniformly through the interior space of the hood so as to achieve uniform heating of a packaged object moving through the heating channel.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a shrink film heating device, and in particular to a shrink film heating device that is applied to a shrink film heating process carried out in various heat sealing packaging machine to make each packaged object subjecting to uniform heating and thereby achieve the best result of sealed packaging with the shrink film and belongs to the technical field of improved shrink film heating facility.

2. The Related Arts

A heat sealing packaging machine is large-sized automatic packaging machinery commonly used in the industrial sector for packaging an object that is manufactured as merchandise with a shrink film and subjecting the packaged object to heating with high temperature air in order to have the shrink film heated and tightly shrink-wrapped the merchandise object. This provides a number of advantages for the packaged object, including improved product stability, better weather durability, easy warehousing and shipping, and protection of outside appearance from undesired damage.

However, there are a huge number of remarkably diversified merchandise products to be packaged in this way at the ends of manufacturing chains of various businesses. These merchandise products are diversified at least in the shape or configuration. Due to such diversified shapes of the merchandise products to be packaged, the conventional automatic packaging machines, especially the shrink film heating devices thereof, are often of troubles in generating uniform heating result. Further, the shrink film heating devices of the conventional heat sealing packaging machines are often constructed in such a way that high temperature air cannot be uniformly distributed inside a heating space of these devices and this leads to a great temperature difference that causes the trouble of incapable of uniform heating. As a result, the shrink film that wraps around the packaged merchandise products get wrinkling or even broken due to over heating or is simply slack due to under heating. All these result in poor outside appearance of the merchandise products and are adverse to the subsequent operations of warehousing and shipping. Eventually, the functionality desired for the shrink film packaging may completely fail.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Thus, the present invention aims to provide an improved shrink film heating device, which effectively overcomes or alleviates the drawbacks of the conventional devices.

The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a shrink film heating device that is applicable to shrink film heating processes of various heat sealing packaging machines to minimize temperature difference induced in high temperature air so as to make each packaged object that passes through a heating channel uniformly heated and thus provide the best result of packaging with heat shrink film.

To achieve the above objective, the following technical solution is adopted in the present invention.

The present invention provides a shrink film heating device, which generally comprises a chassis, a hood, a conveyor belt, a driving belt, and a heat homogenization assembly.

The hood is arranged above the chassis.

The conveyor belt and the driving belt are arranged between the chassis and the hood.

The hood comprises at least one heating assembly mounted to a portion thereof, including an upper wall of the hood, for supplying hot air into a hollow interior space of the hood.

The hood has an open bottom facing downward and corresponding to the conveyor belt.

The hood has front and rear walls each forming an opening to define a heating channel.

A heat homogenization assembly is arranged at each of two sides of the heating channel inside the hood. The heat homogenization assemblies are coupled by a conduit to an air supply source in order to supply regulate temperature air into the interior space of the hood.

When the packaging machine is put into operation, each of the packaged objects that is packaged with a shrink film is conveyed through the heating channel and the air supply source is activated to supply regular temperature air through the heat homogenization assemblies into the hollow interior space of the hood for mixing with and homogenizing the high temperature thereby making temperature difference of the hot air inside the hood minimized. Consequently, each packaged object that is conveyed by the conveyor belt through the heating channel can be uniformly heated and the best result of packaging with shrink film can be obtained.

According to the present invention, depending on the intervals between and sizes of the packaged objects, the amount of air discharged through the heat homogenization assemblies can be adjusted with air valves in order to correspond to the high temperature air supplied by the heating assemblies in order to allow the shrink film heating device of a single packaging machine to work with various packaged objects of different specifications.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art by reading the following description of a preferred embodiment thereof, with reference to the attached drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a shrink film heating device according to the present invention in an assembled form;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view, partially exploded, of the shrink film heating device according to the present invention; and

FIG. 3 is a perspective view, in a relatively enlarged form, showing a heat homogenization assembly of the shrink film heating device according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a shrink film heating device according to the present invention in an assembled form.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view, partially exploded, of the shrink film heating device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view, in a relatively enlarged form, showing a heat homogenization assembly 20 of the shrink film heating device according to the present invention.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the shrink film heating device according to the present invention generally comprises a chassis 10, a hood 11, a conveyor belt 14, a driving belt 15, and a heat homogenization assembly 20.

As shown in FIG. 2, the hood 11 is arranged above the chassis 10.

Arranged between the chassis 10 and the hood 11 are the conveyor belt 14 and the driving belt 15.

The conveyor belt 14 functions to move a packaged object that has been packaged with a shrink film in a preceding process to pass through the hood 11.

The driving belt 15 is located above the conveyor belt 14 to engage each of the packaged objects that is being moved in order to turn the packaged object for uniform heating.

As show in FIG. 2, the hood 11 comprises at least one heating assembly 12 mounted to a portion thereof, including an upper wall of the hood 11, for supplying hot air into a hollow interior space of the hood 11. The hood 11 has an open bottom facing downward and corresponding to the conveyor belt 14. The hood 11 has front and rear end walls, each forming an opening through which the conveyor belt 14 passes through a heating channel 13.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the hood 11 further comprises a heat homogenization assembly 20 that is arranged at each of two opposite sides of the heating channel 13 that is located inside the hood 11.

The heat homogenization assembly 20 has a structure that is more clearly shown in FIG. 3 and comprises a frame 21 and a plurality of horizontally extending air ducts 22 mounted to the frame 21. Each of the air ducts 22 forms a plurality of air discharge openings 23, which allow air that is located inside the air duct 22 to be discharged through the air discharge openings 23. Each of the air ducts 22 has an end connected to a common conduit 24, which is coupled to an air supply source. With such an arrangement, the heat homogenization assemblies 20 that are located on the two sides of the heating channel 13 may supply regular temperature air into the hollow interior space of the hood 11.

The operation of the present invention is such that when the packaging machine is put into operation, each of the packaged objects that is packaged with a shrink film is conveyed by the conveyor belt 14 to pass through the heating channel 13 and the air supply source is activated to supply regular temperature air through the heat homogenization assemblies 20 into the hollow interior space of the hood 11.

The regular temperature air supplied into the interior of the hood 11 is mixed with the high temperature air existing in the hood 11 and uniformly distributed through the interior of the hood 11 thereby making temperature difference of the hot air inside the hood minimized. Consequently, each packaged object that is conveyed by the conveyor belt 14 through the heating channel 13 can be uniformly heated and the best result of packaging with shrink film can be obtained.

According to the present invention, depending on the intervals between and sizes of the packaged objects, the amount of air discharged through the heat homogenization assemblies 20 can be adjusted with air valves in order to correspond to the high temperature air supplied into the hood 11 by the heating assemblies 12 in order to allow the shrink film heating device of a single packaging machine to work with various packaged objects of different specifications.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, it is apparent to those skilled in the art that a variety of modifications and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention which is intended to be defined by the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A shrink film heating device, comprising: a chassis; a hood, which is arranged above the chassis, the hood has an upper wall to which at least one heating assembly is mounted for supplying hot air into an hollow interior space of the hood, the hood having an open bottom facing downward and corresponding to a conveyor belt, the hood having front and rear end walls, each forming an opening through which the conveyor belt passes through a heating channel defined in the hollow interior space of the hood; the conveyor belt, which is arranged between the chassis and the hood and is adapted to move a packaged object that is packaged with a shrink film to pass through the hood; a driving belt, which is located above the conveyor belt to selectively engage the packaged object in order to turn the packaged object for uniform heating; and two heat homogenization assemblies, which are respectively set at opposite sides of the heating channel inside the hood to supply regulate temperature air into the hollow interior space of the hood; wherein the regulate temperature air that is supplied into the interior space of the hood is mixed with high temperature air existing in the interior space of the hood and uniformly distributed in the interior space of the hood to achieve uniform heating of the packaged object moved by the conveyor belt to pass through the heating channel and thus realizing excellent result of packaging with the shrink film.
 2. The shrink film heating device as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the heat homogenization assemblies comprises a frame and a plurality of air ducts mounted to the frame, each of the air ducts forming a plurality of air discharge openings, which allows air that is located inside the air duct to be discharged through the air discharge openings, each of the air ducts having an end connected to a common conduit, which is coupled to an air supply source in order to supply the regulate temperature air into the interior space of the hood.
 3. The shrink film heating device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the heat homogenization assemblies are adjustable in the amount of air supplied into the interior space of the hood in accordance with the amount of high temperature air supplied by the heating assembly. 